章 129: Fiery tempers and cold shoulders

Reima drags the hesitant Quelana back to the cave instead of teleporting her, to allow her to think of her next actions without immediately being berated. They walk down the twisting web covered cave and greet Eingyi before entering the private section of the cave they had requisitioned from the rest of the chaos covenant. Quelana stops just outside and begins to mutter encouraging words to herself before briskly following him inside, Quelaag and Quelina look at her wide eyed and Quelana closes her eyes preparing herself to be burned or hit... She feels a pair of arms wrap around her, she opens her eyes and sees a tearful Quelina hugging her tightly, some sharp scales of her lower body pokes her but she can only feel the warmth of her younger sisters arms.

Quelina "You're alive!" She says hoarsely before turning to Quelaag, "I knew Lana was stronger than Gwyn's army!"

Quelana grimaces as she hears this and tries to respond, "Ah, actually I never fought th-"

Quelaag looks at her with a scowl, "I had hoped you had died..." The atmosphere immediately turns tense, "If you had I wouldn't have to remember how you ran from battle." the flames covering her lower body intensify as she continues "And yet from what I've heard you've been moping just outside of here for centuries? Why!?"

Quelana "I'm sorry!-" Her reply is stopped as she's smothered by a white spider, Quelina sends a pleading look to her sister, "Quelaag, we haven't seen her for a long time... Perhaps we should forget the past and begin to connect with each other again.. Like family?"

Reima can see that Quelaag wants to shout and scream at her Quelana's betrayal but is momentarily quelled by Quelina's intervention.

Quelaag "Fine, but I refuse to be family with a betrayer!" She begins to leave and Reima follows after her while sending a encouraging look to the tearful younger sister.

After leaving she throws her arms into the air in exacerbation, "The nerve of her? She's sorry? How does that make up for the centuries where I had to care for Quelina alone!?!" She turns to Reima, "Well? Isn't it rather disgusting that she had wallowed in self pity instead of assisting in helping when Quelina was sick?" She asks him while retaining her vicious look.

Reima "I don't like what she did and yes, I think it's deplorable but how would she know of Quelina's condition if she was hidden by an illusionary wall?"

The question stumps the angry spider who turns her irritation on him instead, "Why are you defending her! She deserves everything I said to her."

Reima "I agree. But if you care about Quelina at all then you should try to come to some kind of agreement, I'd hate to see her caught between you fighting with Quelana." He says, mentally noting that he also wishes to learn her Pyromancies.

While Quelaag can see reason in Reima's calm responses she refuses to be calmed so easily, "Fine, be like that! I'm need to kill something." She scuttles out of the cave and towards Blight Town, presumably to wipe out the already dwindling population of monsters.

Solaire walks up behind him and rests his hand on Reima's shoulder, "Trouble in paradise?"... Wait a second, where did Solaire learn that phrase? He ignores niggling question and sighs, "Yeah, you can say that... I would ask you for advice but I can tell your just as clueless as I am when it comes to women." The duo laughs which attracts Priscilla who joins in despite not knowing the context.

Reima keeps a close eye on the interactions between Quelana and Quelina, at first the older sister seems rather reluctant to express her feelings but the adorable albino spider manages to go through her tough exterior. Quelana breaks down crying on her shoulder and Reima decides to leave them to it while trying to stay out of Quelaag's warpath. He decides to learn a couple more Pyromancies from Eingyi to pass the time, he gets given the scrolls for Poison mist and Toxic mist and sits down outside to read and test them.

The poison mist pyromancy releases a purple mist that invades the bloodstream of anyone who inhales it, the damage depends on the creature and its susceptibility to poison. Reima reads through it a couple times before using his flame to expel a pale purple mist in-front of himself, the incorrect colour and small amount means that he'd miscast it somehow. He realises that he'd not put enough mana into it and pushes enough mana to cast a Crystal Soul spear into it, a large cloud erupts from his flame and floats down through the huge roots that cover the nearby lands. He nods appreciatively before casting it another couple of times to get the muscle memory forming, afterwards he opens the toxic mist scroll and while it looks basically the same the effects are fundamentally different. It immediately starts corroding any organic material that it comes across, if he put enough mana into the spell he's sure it would melt a normal human into sludge in a matter of moments... Scary!

As he starts to roll the scrolls into their original shape he sees a slightly calmer Quelaag slowly walking towards the cave entrance from the swamp. He waves at her but receives a cold shoulder in return... He sighs, why are females so complicated?